Church and Society. No issue is perhaps more alive today than current political unrest connected to the upcoming 2010 The article “The Diakonia of an Ekklesia to the Res Publica,” subtitled “Prospects of the Philippine Church in Transforming the Filipino Polity for the Common Good,” by Fr. Aloysius Lopez Cartagenas, boldly states that “lost in the church’s discourse is an ethical vision honed by the deep convictions of the Christian faith and the sciences of political reason, namely the ‘common good.’” What role does the Church play in the public sphere? What public persona does it need to assume given the demands of the social, political, economic, and cultural situation of the nation, a situation that threatens once again to plunge the country into chaos and violence? Fr. Cartagenas calls for a “society-leavening church” that is not afraid to embed itself in the “complex and multi-linear political, social, and cultural transformative process” if it wants to contribute to the redemption of Philippine society. – from the Editor’s Preface